Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Going Back to Work

About a month ago I had the great
fortune of having an amazing new person stumble into my life, ready
to challenge by his very existence the way I think about myself and
my role in the world. That person is my first child, a beautiful baby
boy. Even at his young age he is already full of contradictions: At
times, he studies the world with the attentiveness and calm of a
philosopher, taking it all in without pausing to divulge what pearls
of wisdom he has gleaned. By contrast, he is barely cognizant of his
own internal state and it's taken weeks of careful observation to
discern which cries are hunger, gas or fatigue. We have had to teach
him how to eat and how to sleep, which has really driven home the
point that literally everything he will know or do as an adult
decades from now he will have to somehow be taught.

Two weeks after he was born I returned
to the office to resume work. There was a pang of regret that I
expect many a father feels at being away from his only child all day,
but there was also something else I didn't expect: a new urgency, a
ticking clock that wasn't there before. I'll elaborate in a minute,
but first some back story.

< childhood >

Last year I was a computer game
developer. There is a fair amount of truth to what most people assume
about game developers: we spend a respectable portion of our time
play testing games, the atmosphere is one of creativity, fun, and
self-expression (relative to most software development teams), and in
the end we have our share of fans because we are essentially in the
same industry as Hollywood and record labels. There is also however a
fair amount of dysfunction: unrealistic deadlines, dysfunctional
corporate partnerships and licensing agreements, and a disturbingly
high rate of failed studios and canceled projects. I could write a
whole blog post on this subject. It's a shame, because I know from
experience that games can elicit strong emotions, games can change
attitudes, and most importantly, games can teach. This last point is
important because it got me thinking seriously about how I could use
my technical skills to make an impact in the field of education.

The observation that depresses me most
about our education system in America is how little things have
changed since I was a child. Students I speak to going to elementary,
middle and high school now have almost the same experience in class
that I did - they are taught the same subjects in the same ways. So,
what is the problem? Just look at the rest of their lives: they carry
in their pockets computers orders of magnitude more powerful than
those of two decades ago, social networking connects them in realtime
with their friends and family, and millions of videos (at least half
of which are not cat-related) are free to watch anytime. The
possibilities for learning have never been greater: Wikipedia dwarfs
any encyclopedia or public library, you can visit many museums and
art galleries virtually, thousands of books can be downloaded
wirelessly onto a single portable reader, and many research journals
are now publicly available online. Such massive technological changes
in the world have been incredibly disruptive in many industries -
finance, commerce, entertainment, journalism, health care, art, the
list goes on and on. But no matter how much we all agree that these
same seismic changes will eventually happen in education, as a
society we have so far been too timid to experiment with new ways to
teach our children.

< maturity >

Enter Khan Academy. Sal's project began
very humbly, tutoring his niece in Math over the Internet. I have
also tutored middle and high school students in Math, and there is a
key insight I took away from the experience: the students who needed
tutoring were not dumb, or slow, or stupid. Surprisingly, the thing
they all had in common was a serious gap in their understanding of
some basic concept. Over time they had developed an attitude of
defensiveness and unwillingness to address the issue, especially if
the key concept was several grade levels beneath them. As a tutor I
found myself in the awkward position of trying to get someone through
Algebra who didn't really understand the relationship between
fractions, percentages, and decimals and who felt that understanding
to be permanently out of her reach. What I saw Khan Academy doing was
addressing both issues: By using videos, a student who needs basic
concepts explained over and over can get that in the privacy of their
room without feeling judged or rushed. And by encouraging self-paced
learning, a student will not be tutored in Algebra until she has
demonstrated a thorough understanding of the prerequisite concepts.
Most importantly, I saw no other company that was experimenting with
new teaching methods and reaching actual students. All these reasons
convinced me that by joining this team I would have a positive social
impact, and that is what I did.

By its very mandate, Khan Academy is
disruptive. We put resources and tools out there for free, for anyone
to use, and let schools who dare to experiment with new ideas and
teaching methods come to us. The fact that schools and districts have
actually done so is very encouraging to me, and it gives me hope that
by the time my son reaches school age, schools all across the country
will be experiencing a much-needed renaissance of creativity,
experimentation, and progress. As a parent I want to encourage him to
find his own interests, his own voice, and a love for learning for
its own sake. Rather than being a conduit for dry instruction,
schools can teach kids to be informed citizens and morally conscious
people. This is far more important and difficult than conveying a
specific bit of knowledge or administering a standardized test. Sure,
it is counterintuitive to speak of online education as a key tool for
unlocking the human element of education, but that is what I see in
the pilot schools and in our community of students and teachers.
There is a hunger for change, and as more startups appear to feed
that hunger the change will accelerate.

< parenthood >

The clock has been ticking for a long
time, even though it didn't hit home for me until my son was born. It
lights a fire beneath me to work harder at this job that I love, not
just because of the wonderful people I get to work with but because
we're working toward a common mission: to make education accessible
and effective for everybody. This is not an abstract goal - in the
next decade tens of millions of children will walk into their first
classroom. How many will eventually go to college? How many will be
able to compete in a global economy? How many will develop a lifelong
love of learning?

As much as I would love to spend all my
time staying home with my son, I take comfort in the knowledge that
what we strive for every day is a brighter future for him and
millions like him all over the world. I couldn't imagine a more
rewarding way to spend my days.

< / tom >

P.S. Do you write code? Do you get
goosebumps pondering the potential of technology to transform
education and get a whole generation excited about learning? Do you
enjoy freshly baked bread? We have a software developer position
open! Email me at tom at khanacademy.org to find out more.

3 comments:

Unfortunately, I doubt your dream will become a reality. Schools are slow to adopt amazing things like the Khan Academy, as teachers fear they will lose their jobs. Most such institutions primary objective is to provide jobs, not to actually educate. I have never seen a school adopt Khan Academy to it's full potential. It's even rare for a teacher to say "Go to Khan Academy and see me if you still don't understand" even today!! Most school websites don't even mention Khan Academy, but they could, it's just a link away, so easy to add. Just do a search for a major school. It's rather disappointing.

I am nearly blind, and studying math, or any subject, was more difficult than you could imagine, especially since I grew up in a rather backwards country. So I was never really that good at school stuff. But when my fortune changed and my mom moved us to Canada where I got access to the Internet through my uncle's studying, and my mom's funding of a brand new IBM Aptiva with OS/2, I learned to program with those huge monospaced letters, I learend to even write music using Impulse Tracker (For DOS, with big letters! no stupid mouse GUI). I suddenly had the whole world open up to me. I could never have achieved any of that in Serbia where I grew up (people there still struggle to patch holes in their roofs!). I never would have gotten a job if it wasn't for free tutorials and HOWTOs that the Linux community is so proud of, or the SWAG for Pascal programmers during BBS days.

I am so thankful that Khan Academy exists. I can finally pursue mathematics (some of it at least) to my heart's content. Thought it's still not perfect. But it's better t han stupid text books and chalkboards and raising your hand. I love Khan Academy, I wish it would completely replace the VHS system of education - schools.

I'm glad you have become a father. It's a pleasure I'll never know. :(